Panel to Obama: Protect against hackers

COMBINED DISPATCHES

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama should create a new White House office to protect cyberspace from hackers, thieves and foreign agents, coordinating security efforts across U.S. military, intelligence and civilian agencies, according to a new report from a panel of leading government and industry experts.

The report, expected to be made public today on Capitol Hill, also urges Obama’s new administration and Congress to pass new laws to allow for speedier investigations — and in some cases quicker retaliation once intruders are identified. It proposed online “data warrants,” for example, rather than traditional search warrants, which it said “may be increasingly impracticable in the online environment.”

Chances are good Obama will be receptive to many of the proposals: At least five members of the panel that produced the report also are working for his presidential transition team.

They include former White House official Paul Kurtz, advising Obama on national security matters, and Obama technology advisers Dan Chenok and Bruce McConnell.

The proposals by the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency were being delivered to Capitol Hill during a period of increasing exasperation within the U.S. government over embarrassing computer break-ins at the Pentagon, White House, State Department, Commerce Department and elsewhere that have been traced in recent years across foreign borders, notably to Russia and China.

The report urges the Obama administration to make clear to America’s enemies and allies how it will respond when it detects and traces such attacks, depending on whether break-ins are blamed on hackers, criminals or foreign governments. U.S. options could include trade or financial sanctions or military attacks.

Meanwhile, Obama predicted Sunday that the U.S. economy would continue on its downward path, but he declined in a wide-ranging television interview to say how much his recovery plan would cost or whether he intended to raise taxes immediately on wealthy Americans to help pay for it.

Obama said his economic advisers were still “crunching the numbers” for a post-inauguration economic stimulus package. In his weekend radio address Saturday, the president-elect had said the package would include a massive public-works program to build roads and other infrastructure projects.

But Sunday he hinted that even a major stimulus plan would not be enough to turn the economy around right away.

“It’s going to get worse,” Obama told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” pointing to the “fragility of the financial system” and to recent numbers showing the highest unemployment rate in 15 years.

Some Republicans have said the stimulus plan would be far too expensive.

But Obama said it was more important to spend money to revive the economy and create jobs than worry about the short-term effect on the national debt.

Some analysts and Democratic lawmakers have said the stimulus plan could cost up to $700 billion.

The nation’s governors, meeting with Obama last week, said they had more than $130 billion in infrastructure projects already planned that could be started as part of the program.

Obama’s appearance came as he faced growing pressure to exhibit leadership in the weeks before his Jan. 20 swearing-in.

Lawmakers have been critical of the Bush administration’s handling of a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street and have called on Obama to inject himself more forcefully into the debate over how that money should be spent.